Rare earths are back in the headlines, but is all the hype worth it? Let’s breakdown what these are and how “rare” they actually are.
Rare earths are byproducts of mining for other metals like nickel, copper, and uranium. While not rare on Earth, they are rarely found in sufficient abundance in a single location for their mining to be economically viable. The only real challenging aspect lies in the refining process, which is just dirty, time-consuming, and expensive…but not all that difficult to do.
China dominates rare earths because they have subsidized production (artificially lowering the price) and they’ve been doing it for decades. So, other countries haven’t had any incentive to turn on their refining capacity, yet. Once the Chinese overplay their hand or the system crumbles, other nations will just ramp up production.
This isn’t really something to fear, other than a few months of issues. However, the US should be more concerned with other critical supply chains like aluminum, steel, and lithium, where the US has yet to build out sufficient infrastructure.